Sonnet Sequence: Divine Confusion

Beauty still inflames the senses,
and softly begs to be drawn near,
nearer, through the psyche’s fences,
to be possessed, complete and clear,
taken whole inside the body
of the viewer, and its naughty,
uncanny smiling taunts the one
who hears it, tastes it, and is won.

This assaulting beauty’s victim
desires to overthrow its spell,
recover from the stunning shell
and its overwhelming dictum,
by rising, wrecking in delight
all the instigator’s might,
tearing it to tiny pieces
and throwing it upon the floor.

Her insane desire increases;
she wants to swallow, breathe, adore,
and put walls around her daughter—
dominate, envision, slaughter.

But never, never will she feel
fulfilled again: this cold ideal
fills her body with an aching,
intractable, eternal pain,
a need her tongue cannot explain
for creating, striving, breaking.

But if the object can’t obey,
she ruins the enthused display
to protect herself from treason
by that uncaring, lovely drive.

Children, it is for this reason
that all the architects alive
have built, that all the poets write,
that fruit is eaten, flames ignite,
and baby animals are born.

And this is why the veil was torn,
why the prince, when first he entered,
bent down to touch the sleeping miss
and wake her with his mouth: a kiss.

This is why the world is centered
upon its center, why both Good
and Bad exist, and why they should—
why we see so much destruction
within the earth and on its crust.

It is beauty’s soft seduction
and its resultant, bitter thrust
that bear responsibility
for elegance, nobility,
and self-improvement of all kinds.

Without this prickle in our minds,
this perverse, insane delusion,
nothing new would come to be
in the earth, the sky, the sea,
and the world’s divine confusion
would stagnate, empty out until
no voice disturbed the silent still.